


all the motions of ordinary love

by singagainsoon



Series: "The Things That Stay" 'verse [5]
Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Flashbacks, M/M, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Newton Geiszler Recovery Arc, Post-Movie: Pacific Rim (2013), Post-Movie: Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Romance, Science Husbands, the first half is sweet and the second half is a little sad but its fine, they're in love and that's what matters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-25
Updated: 2018-07-12
Packaged: 2019-05-28 14:00:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15050684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singagainsoon/pseuds/singagainsoon
Summary: things had never been simple, really. easier, yes, in a way; but not simple. what really matters, though, is that they are in love. that is more than enough.





	1. there are moments here only yours and mine

It is exactly six o’clock in the morning when the alarm clock sounds, stirring Newton from his sleep and prompting him to turn over and slap the snooze button with the palm of his hand. He rolls to his other side, pulls the covers from Hermann to yank them up over his head. It takes Hermann a moment to collect himself, blinking in the darkness. He is still not accustomed to waking up in quarters other than his own, very much not alone, and it feels every time as if his stomach is playing host to a butterfly convention. He supposes he could get used to it, though.

“Ordinarily, I would advise against snoozing that,  _ meine Geliebte _ ,” Hermann mumbles, turning to lay on his back and stare up at what small bit of ceiling he can make out in the lack of light. He wills his eyes to adjust to their surroundings, squeezing them shut and opening them once more. Newton’s shape materializes beside him, his shoulder a mountain rising from beneath the blankets, the curve of his hip a rolling hill.

“Ngh,” comes the reply, muffled beneath the heaviness of sleep.

It is still mostly dark outside over the Shatterdome and completely dark in Newton’s -  _ their _ ? - bedroom, a singular patch of deep blue not-quite-daylight sitting in a square on the wall above the bed. It is simulated, but it looks near enough to the real thing. Newton emanates warmth beside Hermann, arm flung dramatically over his sleep-heavy eyes; he feels like a heartbeat. Steady, reliable, rhythmic. Hermann was loath to let him leave the morning prior, to let himself leave Newton despite the fact that they operate out of the same shared lab space (tape down the middle be damned now); but it burns not to be touching him somehow, little stinging fires biting at the tips of his fingers and his toes. Their feelings for each other, whatever they are -  _ love _ , yes, Hermann knows it is, though the word frightens him - blot out everything else, rising big and strange in front of him.

The alarm blares again from the clock, but this time, Hermann hoists himself up to lean over Newton’s body and shut it off properly. Newton rolls onto his side, mumbling something near-incoherent, and reaches for Hermann with outstretched arms. Hermann obliges easily, curling into his chest and giving his cheek a sleepy kiss. He is soft, rounded where Hermann is sharp and scrawny, and it is pleasant to hold him. It has only been three days since the Drift, the end of the war, the sudden possibility of a future thrust into his uncertain hands; but it feels like it has been an entire lifetime, standing now at the star-fringed edges of the shaky beginnings of a new universe.

“Come now, darling, perhaps we ought to be certain they have no need of us for the day .”

Hermann feels Newt’s heart, the vibrating  _ thrum _ of a plucked guitar string in the back of his head somewhere. Newton kisses the top of Hermann’s head and lingers there; Hermann knows without a doubt that he is attempting to talk himself out of crawling back beneath the covers and returning to sleep. His fingers stroke little paths down the back of Hermann’s pajama shirt, between his shoulder blades and back up to the base of his neck. He shivers and tucks his face against the crook of Newton’s neck. He smells of clean laundry and - very faintly - of sweat. It is terribly tempting to give in, to roll Newton onto his back and kiss him senseless and risk letting the both of them go unseen for the day. Hermann is sure their fellow Shatterdome occupants are growing steadily suspicious of the pair, though it somehow does not fill him with anxious dread the way it might have before. Newton’s fingers slip just beneath the waistband of Hermann’s pajama pants, his skin warm against the base of Hermann’s knobby spine.

Hermann’s breath hitches in his throat, and he struggles to keep his voice from wavering. He is startled at how easily he has slipped into these tiny gestures of intimacy like a well-worn sweater; little touches, mumbled pet names, offhand kisses like breathing. Hermann, who had one total kiss under his belt before the almost-end-of-the-world three days ago. Hermann, whose hands grew clammy at the mere fleeting thought of having to touch someone else. Hermann, who broke into a cold sweat at the thought of letting someone into his life that way. “Newton, my dear, if you start this-.”

“Hermann,” he whines, but withdraws his hand regretfully, disentangles himself and reaches to retrieve his glasses off the nightstand regardless. “It’s over, dude. Let’s just go back to sleep. What are we gonna do? Like, genuinely, what’s left for us?”

He squints at Hermann through what little light they have, leans in to kiss the tip of his nose. Newton’s face is halfway between sleeping and alert, slack and sweet and soft. Hermann gives his cheek a loving pat and rubs his thumb over the down-turned corner of Newton’s mouth. He rests their foreheads together, tilts his head to bump noses with Newton.

“We might find it beneficial to clean some of the clutter out of the lab,” Hermann says, releasing Newton rather reluctantly to reclaim the bulk of the blankets as Newton slides unceremoniously from the bed to stretch and yawn. His boxers have ridden up comically on one side, the curve of one tattooed ass cheek sticking out of the fabric. There is a blank spot just below it, pale white on his thigh, where the colorful swirls come to a startling halt. “Your personal effects have spilled over onto my side.”

“I think my ‘personal effects’ have done a little more than that,” Newt smirks, chuckling at the way Hermann’s face flushes pink up to the tips of his ears.

Newton raises his arms over his head, leans to one side to make the tattoos on his back crease a little. He groans and pads barefoot to the bathroom, shutting the door behind him. There is a brief moment of silence before the shower turns on and Newton begins a slightly off-key rendition of a song Hermann is only vaguely familiar with. Hermann, however, rolls onto his side.

Sleeping crammed into Newton’s PPDC-issued bed is hard on his leg - memory foam support pillow beneath it be damned - though the mere notion of returning to his own quarters, alone, is far worse. He is not certain he would know what to do with himself now without Newton.

The bathroom door creaks open and Hermann turns to regard Newton, standing stark naked in all his tattooed glory in the yellow slant of light spilling from the bathroom behind him. Hermann’s heart skips a beat, then  _ thumps _ twice as hard as if it is attempting to make up for it. “Do you maybe wanna, uh, jump in? With me, I mean. If you want. To save water or whatever.”

“I… You see, I-” Hermann’s brain kicks into overdrive, whirring at top speed in an attempt to formulate some kind of excuse or even perhaps an entire unfragmented sentence. He kicks himself for sputtering, for hesitating though anxiety lumps in his mouth. “What I mean to say is that... ah, yes.”

Newt’s eyebrows shoot upwards, a grin tugging at his lips. “Yes?”

“Yes.” 

Hermann eases himself from the piles of blankets that he’s dragged into Newton’s bed over the course of the last seventy-two hours, pulling them from where a few have twisted around his skinny legs. He wants to tell Newton to just go on, not to watch him struggle out of bed, but he presses his lips into a tight, thin line. Hermann wonders if Newton can feel the erratic thumping of his heart. It’s not as though Newton has not seen him without his clothes on - he has, several times in fact, and Hermann is positive that they will not finish the day without ravishing each other at least once more. But the lights had been off then, the darkness covering him. 

He makes it the short distance to the bathroom without his cane, fighting to steady his wobbling leg and appear unburdened, though he clings white-knuckled to the doorframe once he reaches it. At least he can put weight on it without seeing stars most days. The worried lines creased between Newton’s eyebrows are not lost on Hermann, and he allows Newton to reach out and help steady him, catching his elbows as though grabbing him around the waist might be a step too far. The thought of  _ anything _ being considered “too far” at this point is nearly enough to prompt a chuckle from Hermann.

“You sure, Herm? You-” 

Hermann nods once, firmly, and waves his hand in the direction of the shower stall. “Quite sure. You go on, I'll join you in a moment.”

Newton gives him a final long look before pulling the glass door open and stepping inside under the spray of the water. He starts up humming again almost immediately, soft and muffled on the other side of the glass. He can make out Newton’s shape, small and colorful and broken up by the frosted glass pane. His heart tugs, pulls like an ache in his chest, and he turns away from the blot that is Newton’s figure. Hermann unbuttons his pajama shirt, shaking fingers wrestling with the buttons, and casts it aside. He balances himself carefully on the closed lid of the toilet, sighing in relief to be off his leg if only for a few minutes. 

Despite the steam that fills the small bathroom, his skin sports little raised bumps of gooseflesh. He straightens his spine, the hunch of his shoulders, and steels himself for the rejection that is sure to follow. If not rejection, then at least a flash of a pitying glance. He is not sure which would be the worst case scenario.

But Hermann is an adult. Hermann is brilliant. Hermann can survive anything. It is some small consolation that they likely will not remain for very long in the Shatterdome; if Newton does not desire to continue seeing him, they can stay to their respective spaces until they clear out and move on with their lives. He will deal with the aftermath, the broken pieces, in silence if he must. 

He hefts himself back to his feet, strips his pajama pants and underwear off in one go, and slides the shower door open to stand inside, nearly nose-to-nose with Newton. Newton rakes his fingers through his wet hair, pushing strands up off his forehead and slicking them back. He smiles at Hermann, giving him a quick but appreciative once-over. Newton is handsome; Hermann has noticed this before, many times over, but it nonetheless strikes him with an alarming amount of force.

“It took you- Wait,  _ fuck _ , do you need a… a shower chair or something?”

Hermann shakes his head and allows himself the smallest of smiles. “Not as long as I, ah, have something to hold onto.”

Newt grins, unabashedly, and settles his hands on Hermann’s hips to scoot him closer. Hermann’s insides lurch, organs slamming heavily into the bars of his ribcage. Newt’s thumb taps idly against his Bad Side, against the scars tracking a steady path over his hip and across his thigh, unconsciously in time with the song he had been humming only a moment before. If he feels the unnatural twist to Hermann’s frame, the obvious jut of bone knocked too far out of its proper place, he makes no indication of it. Hermann studies his features for any miniscule signs of unease, of discomfort, and finds only weathered kindness so strong that he thinks he may cry.

Hermann has to look away, and he drops his eyes to the tattoos on Newton’s chest.

They are quiet, though not uncomfortably so. It feels  _ right _ , correct, the long-searched-for answer to a particularly puzzling equation finally falling silently into its proper place. Hermann had been a fool to ever believe Newton was insincere, and a pang of guilt stabs him between the lungs. They fit together, Newton looking up at him through the stubby fringe of his eyelashes, Hermann allowing himself to be at careful ease. He exhales softly, relief flooding his system like a drug. They stand so close that their toes touch. 

Their Drift-forged bond flutters, flaps gently like the wings of a tiny bird then settles back into placid static. 

“You okay, Herm?” 

Hermann nods and drapes his arms around Newton’s neck, leaning into him, mindful not to shift too much weight onto him and risk sending them toppling over. “Yes.”

“It didn't feel like it.” 

“Oh for goodness sake, Newton, I- Admittedly, I was perhaps a bit uncertain about your seeing my hip, though I realize now that I was being irr-”

Newton hoists himself onto his tiptoes to cut Hermann off with a kiss. They have grown rather good at that, in Hermann's opinion, in the space of the last few days. He covers the worst of the scar tissue, where the skin there is puckered and pock-marked and jagged with surgery scars, with his palm. Hermann feels as if the air has been sucked from his lungs and his insides vacuumed away with it, but he doesn’t mind in the slightest. It is thrilling, in its own unprecedented way; a thrill Hermann finds he enjoys quite a bit. Water runs in warm trickles down his back, his chest, his shoulders, his legs.

“You're being dumb,” Newt says when he’s finished with kissing Hermann speechless and sore-lipped. When Hermann’s angular face twists into a scowl, Newton kisses him again before he can manage to get in any words edgewise, sliding one hand up to rest securely on the small of Hermann’s back. Hermann sways just a bit and tightens his grip around Newton’s neck, steadying himself, ignoring the pull in his thigh and the pins in his foot. 

“Honestly, Newton, it-”

“It doesn't matter to me. It really doesn't. I  _ like you _ . C’mon, Herm, you’re supposed to be smart. I thought you could figure that out,” he teases. 

_I love you, you old bastard._ _You know that, don’tcha?_

_ I do. As do you. _

Newt's face stretches into a wide smile. Hermann hopes that the tears prickling insistently at his eyes, warm and sweet and entirely unwelcome, are not half as noticeable as they feel. Any retort he might have shot back, hoping to be witty, dries up on his tongue. He had not been certain if they were going to survive beyond the other day and had spent fretful sleepless nights picturing the Shatterdome crunching with little resistance beneath the foot of a kaiju; but they are very much alive and very much together (two things Hermann had not quite accounted for). Newton mumbles something against his neck, asking Hermann to bring some things down to keep in his closet or his drawers. It is offhand and absentminded, though the weight of it, the implication, the thought of creating memories to leave in that space hangs understood along the Drift bond. 

He tangles his fingers in the wet mop of Newton’s hair and cradles him close, savoring the sweetness of their chests pressed together.

 


	2. time is just a symptom of love

_ 8:10 A.M. _

Hermann had another nightmare, one of the ones that filters slowly back into the space of your mind over the course of the day and then refuses to leave. He had been sleeping, in the nightmare, suspended high above the city in the neon-lit bedroom of Newton’s penthouse. Hermann himself had really only been there once to clean out (salvage) Newton’s things after he had been apprehended by the PPDC, but Newton’s brain had supplied him with the little details: the expensive bottles of alcohol on the countertops, the paintings on the walls, the way the silky bed sheets felt. In the haze of sleep, he woke alone, bathed in the sickly yellow-green glow of preservation fluid in a tank. Newton’s silhouette had been stationed beside the bed, a Pons device on his head and another in his hands. The voice that came, distorted and garbled from his mouth, was not his own, and though he had said “‘Morning, Herm,” Hermann had screamed without sound, gaping like a fish out of water.

The space beside him now, in the wakimg world, rumpled and twisted where Newton's body should have been, is empty and cold.

The terror that had shot through his spine and startled him awake then settles back deep in his bones, nesting like a vulture and snapping its vile neck around to stare at him with bulging eyes. 

Sweat breaks out in little beads on his forehead, feels cold and clammy when his thoughts slam back into his body with the force of an oncoming train. The shower is running, muffled beyond the closed bathroom door.  _Of course he hasn't gone anywhere, you fool._ He inhales, exhales, counts the time between forced breaths the way he has been learning to do.  _ Onetwothreefour- _

It does not come easy to him. Hermann tries to think of Archimedes, of water displacement, of the volume of a mind, of a heart, of dreams and things not tangible, of the sweet elation accompanying that profound  _ Eureka!  _ moment; and his thoughts can only circle predictably back to his own  _ Eureka!  _ moment, all those years and years ago. It is much more pleasant of a thought. He'd been such a fool not to have done something about it long before the end of the war, but he  _ had _ done something, in the end, and that really was the bit that mattered. 

_ You can’t help what you didn’t do. You can’t, like, go back and that’s okay.  _

He had been told once that when your ears ring, it is because someone, somewhere, is speaking ill of you. Hermann has found, though, that when his bones buzz, when his mind rattles in the space of his skull, it is because Newton is thinking of him. He has carved a place for himself inside Newton’s head, as Newton has made his own place within Hermann. He wonders if Newton experiences it in the same way that he does, as the  _ twang _ of a plucked guitar string in his mind, but there is a part of him too frightened to ask, even in the face of near-overwhelming scientific curiosity. It feels personal, in spite of everything they have been through together. (“It’s, uh, it’s like - it's like holding hands, but in your head,” Newton had said once; Hermann did not press the matter further.)

Hermann eases himself out of bed and fumbles for his cane. He has found himself wondering lately just how many of his nightmares belonged to him and how many were things Newton was suffering through. He likely will never know the answer; it is difficult enough discerning exactly where it is that Newton ends and he begins. Perhaps there is no difference anymore. His bones click when he stretches his leg, curls his toes against the worn carpet. He creaks like an old house when the wind blows too hard, and it raises an uneasy stab of concern within him. He had never quite had the time before to consider the ramifications of growing older, of simple time passing and all that came with it. The bathroom door is ajar, warm yellow spilling into the bedroom, and he pushes it open with the intent of (perhaps) combing his hair and (most certainly) brushing his teeth to be rid of the tang of bile that coats his tongue.

Newton stands beneath the spray of the shower with the curtain pulled back, shoulders slumped and rounded over his chest. Hermann spots him almost instantly, the color swatches of his tattoos vibrant against the plain tiled wall. His gaze is fixed on the ground, some indefinite point miles and miles away in his head as the running water swirls down the drain.

“If you don't close the curtain, you're going to get the floor wet.”

Newton says nothing. The shower spray sounds like rain beating on the roof of their house, carrying a steady rhythm. Hermann studies him carefully, toothbrush in his white-knuckled grip, waiting for the slightest sign of movement.

“Newton?” 

His mouth goes dry, and his head pricks with the beginnings of a dull pain. Something akin to an alarm bell goes off in the distant space of Hermann’s basest instincts, and he freezes in place. There is a flash across Hermann’s eyes, something like a light but not a light at all, and their neural link shifts almost imperceptibly. Newton stands motionless, head bent slightly downward, arms hanging limp at his sides. Hermann drops the toothbrush into the sink.

He hobbles to Newton as fast as he can manage, jump started, sidestepping the pile of Newton’s discarded clothes, ignoring the sensation like needles stabbing up through his foot and into his knee, his hip.

“Newt, is everything quite alright?”

Newton remains unmoving, glazed eyes eerily vacant and unseeing, a house with its lights off and its cracked windows looking in on the torn wiring in his brain. The lack of singing, of humming a familiar tune or getting stuck repeating the same chorus for the duration of the shower should have been a giveaway. He should have come to check on him sooner. He should have been paying closer attention. Without so much as a second thought, Hermann peels off his pajama shirt to step into the shower, setting his cane against the wall. The water is running cold.

“Liebling.”

Newt’s head snaps up to blink at him as though he has only just noticed Hermann. His eyes are rimmed with tiny burst blood vessels, faint pink and spidery. Fat tears well up in the corners, wobbling and threatening to spill. Newton brings his hands to either side of his head, fists his fingers in his hair and looks as if he might start pulling it straight from his scalp. Water like icy talons dances down the knobby length of Hermann’s spine. He shivers.

_ I didn’t mean to scare you I'm sorry I don't know what happened it was a tremordreamnightmare- _

“Shhh, shhh,” Hermann soothes, scooping Newton’s soaking wet body into the safety of his arms before he can reel back and knock his head against the wall. Hermann reminds himself that this is nothing new, nothing they have not made it through before; anxiety still rises quickly in his throat, cloying and sticky and acidic. Newton has not been nonverbal nearly as often as he had in the early stages of his recovery, both in the hospital and out, but it still scares Hermann half to death. A visceral part of him is terrified that Newton might slip back out of reach somehow, get lost. Newton is afraid of that too; he feels it churning alongside his own fear, feeding into it and helping it grow. “There we are, darling, I’m here. Deep breaths, my love. Oh, goodness- You're alright. I'm right here.”

Newton’s body heaves, shudders with the effort to keep his breathing under control. Hermann breathes with him, steady and slow and practiced, like the therapist had taught him. It does not help. His leg trembles, wobbles at the knee, but he shifts his weight to the other side and remains standing, arms locked around Newt. Newton’s heart flutters wildly against his back, a scared bird in a cag, beneath the security of Hermann’s wide palm. His bitten nails dig little red half-moons into the soft skin below Hermann’s shoulder blades. Their Drift bond pulls tight, a string about to snap, a muscle stretching too far. Hermann fights to calm himself, to ease Newton's fears, to relieve the overwhelming tension in their heads, but it hurts just behind his eyes. 

If his nose begins to bleed, it will scare Newton.

“Herm.”

Newton’s voice wobbles, wavers, breaks in the middle, and Hermann’s heart squeezes painfully. Hermann leans away from him just enough to study his face, to cup the soft edge of his jaw and look for the spotty beginnings of a nosebleed. He finds nothing but little trails of tears, a face pale and harrowed, and pulls Newton into him once more. He is lightheaded, spent.

“Hush now,  _ Mein Herz.  _ Did you remember your medicine?” Hermann asks gently, resting his cheek against the top of Newton’s head. He glances beyond Newton, past his head and past the open bathroom door to where the little orange pill bottles sit like silent sentinels on the nightstand in the bedroom. They appear undisturbed, in too neat of a row to have been bothered with. Hermann’s stomach flips; he is sick both with love and worry at all hours of the day, it seems. It is immeasurably difficult some days (days like these), with both of them struggling the way that they do, with Hermann only able to do so much for his husband and vice versa. 

_ Yeah. _

Hermann fights the urge to press the issue, to sit Newton down and attempt to talk about it, talk through it. There are times when he wants nothing other than that, to sit squeezed against Hermann’s quiet safety and ramble for hours. Newton does not need to explain what it is that he sees when his eyes are closed (when they are open, sometimes) because Hermann sees it too; but he tries anyway because it brings him some small comfort, and Hermann provides love in the shape of a listening ear.

And then there are times like now, when Hermann knows with some unexplainable certainty that Newton cannot - will not - talk about it.  _ He _ wants to talk about it, though; Hermann wants to find the words to express himself - the right words, as much as they evade him when he wants them most - but he is an island some days (days like these). He wants to reach into Newton’s precious head and rewire the circuits that have fried, to place a kiss on his beloved forehead and ease some of his torment. A million half-finished sentences sit prim and proper on his lips, none of them enough.

Newton shifts, squishes his cheek against Hermann’s chin. This is the same man he used to wrap his parka around, zip them both up in it when the weather was cold so they could bump noses and trade kisses like secrets. The man who used to throw things at him from across the lab when they argued. The man who would fall soundly asleep in Hermann’s bed, slumped heavily over papers and books and research.

Hermann thinks of the press tours just after the war, the interviews, the academic conferences that followed in a steady stream, he and Newton side by side and glowing. There are still photos of them, grinning, well-groomed, fresh faced with new-old love. It had been a struggle, internally, between retaining his much-valued privacy and giving kids like he had been someone to look up to, someone good and brave and smart and  _ loved _ (even if Hermann, when pressed, would not have described himself just that way, Newton did with such ferocity that Hermann at last began to believe him).

He thinks of a very specific autumn night, just after the first closing of the Breach, leaves littering the sidewalk and crunching beneath their feet. He thinks of the way Newton had looked in the soft yellow patches from the streetlights, holding his hand, alternating between singing to the entirety of the nearly-empty street and pausing to kiss Hermann when he ran out of things to put to a melody. He thinks of their giddy hearts, their lips bumping clumsily, their cells buzzing drunk on the sweetness of being. He thinks of how their hands had felt, twined together, how his heart had been so full of love he thought it was going to burst inside his chest. He thinks of how he still feels exactly that way, just a bit older, a bit slower in step.

He bites his tongue, kisses Newton’s soaking hair.

“I would take it all from you if I could,” Hermann mutters, stroking soothing circles over Newt’s skin. “Every bit.”

_ I know. _

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> find me on twitter @kaijubf !!!


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